Parenting

Jewish Camp is a valuable way for interfaith families to learn and share in the joy of Judaism in a comfortable, fun and meaningful environment. See which camps identify as welcoming to interfaith families.

Organizations

Connecting Interfaith Families to Jewish Life in Greater Cleveland by providing programs and opportunities for interfaith families to experience Judaism in a variety of venues, meet other interfaith families, and to connect to other Jewish organizations that may serve their needs.

Events

This is an interactive, fun, and low-key workshop for couples who are dating, engaged or recently married. The sessions will give you a chance to ask questions about faith, to think about where you are as an adult with your own spirituality and to talk through what's important to you and your partner.

For Program Providers

A great way for Jewish professionals and volunteers who work with and provide programming for people in interfaith relationships to locate resources and trainings to build more welcome into their Jewish communities; connect with and learn from each other; and publicize and enhance their programs and services.

Blogs

Don't Have a Cow, Mom!: A Q&A With Hank Azaria

By Laurie Heifetz

March 4, 2008

Comedy, drama, theater, animation, television, movies--you name the genre or medium, and Hank Azaria has excelled at it. Revered among comedy fans for his versatile voicework on The Simpsons (including the characters Apu, Chief Wiggum and Moe), Azaria has been in numerous films including Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Along Came Polly, and The Birdcage, and has starred in several TV shows including Huff.

Azaria's next film is Chicago 10, an animation/documentary hybrid that combines archival footage with cartoon dramatizations of the 1968 Chicago Seven trial, when seven political activists were charged with incitement in the wake of protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Azaria voices Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg in the animated courtroom scenes for the film, which opens in select cities Feb. 29. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Azaria.

You know. Wow. Did my mom put you up to that? Um, I'm not a very religious person. I wasn't raised that way. My parents are very progressive and open about that stuff, so it hasn't really been an issue.

I read that you had a Jewish ceremony at your wedding [to Helen Hunt, whose father's mother is Jewish. The coupled divorced in 2000.]

A female, very progressive rabbi proceeded over that, but it was kind of more of a Wicca ceremony than a Jewish ceremony, when all is said and done.

And what about with your current [girlfriend who is of Irish heritage]--are you planning a Jewish ceremony or an interfaith…

My mom did put you up to all this! Really, we have no plans that way, and God knows--literally, God knows what we would do in that circumstance.

Another reporter: What's next after "The Farnsworth Connection" [an Aaron Sorkin-scribed Broadway play in which Azaria plays David Sarnoff, founder of NBC]?

I do this Jack Black, Harold Ramos, Fievel movie [Year One]--I play Abraham, yeah, so I mother will like that one, and you and my mom will like that one. And then I'm doing--oh, I'm doing Night at the Museum 2 with Ben Stiller. I'm playing the villain in it--I'm playing an Egyptian pharaoh come back to life with very nasty plans for everybody.

Another reporter: How's your mother going to feel about you playing the pharaoh?

[Laughs.]

So, if you were to have children, would you want-- how would you raise them, do you think?

You're wearing a wire and my mom is listening.

No, no, definitely not.

I would want to expose my child--'cause I am Jewish, so I'd certainly want to expose him to that, and let him make his own mind up down the road. But I'd want to give him or her a full view.

I also have a lot of spiritual beliefs. I kind of cherry pick from a lot of different religions and take what I like and leave the rest. And so that's how I'd raise my kid. But I think he should know he's Jewish and get the training that I got and then he can take it or leave it-- ake up his own mind.

Do you celebrate Jewish holidays?

I don't. I believe in a very personal relationship to your maker, and I try to live that everyday and I'm not a huge organized religion guy.

Of the culture of Jews with family origins in Spain, Portugal or North Africa.Hebrew for "canopy" or "covering," the structure (open on all four sides) under which a Jewish wedding ceremony takes place. In its simplest for, it consists of a cloth, sheet, or tallit stretched or supported over four poles.Hebrew for "my master," the term refers to a spiritual leader and teacher of Torah. Often, but not always, a rabbi is the leader of a synagogue congregation.